


miles away from home and everything you know

by WorldOfOurOwn



Category: We Are The Tigers - Allen
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, and a bit of humor bc i can't keep anything serious for too long, and you see a bit kate/eva, but it's mostly annleigh centric, emotionally vulnerable cairo shows up, just a good time of dealing with emotions, mattie and eva show up BRIEFLY, mention of riley and chess and clark, reese talks about her feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorldOfOurOwn/pseuds/WorldOfOurOwn
Summary: Annleigh and Kate have finally graduated, and Cairo and Reese decide to take the two of them on a road trip because as much as they say that they've moved on, dealing with grief is a little more complicated than that.(aka road trip fic! bc i wanted it badly)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	miles away from home and everything you know

**Author's Note:**

> Did I procrastinate on literally every responsibility I have to write this wish-fulfillment road trip fic? Absolutely.
> 
> Sorry to Eva and Mattie stans out there :( I couldn't fit them all in a car, and I figured that it makes sense for these four to do this by themselves, since they are the og team members. I'm also not emotionally intelligent enough to be able to write that many characters dealing with grief, so this is what you get.

It was strange. As Annleigh stood there, holding her fake diploma (she would trade it in for the real one at the registrar’s office after the ceremony), she felt miles away from her body that was smiling at the crowd, at her teammates in the stands, at her parents who were no doubt taking numerous photos of her.

She had always been excited at the prospect of graduation, but now that she was here, she felt like she’d rather be literally anywhere else.

The rest of the ceremony went past in a blur. She vaguely recalled seeing Kate and Eva take the same steps as her and claim their diplomas, posing before the cameras. Eva’s smile seemed genuine enough, though Kate’s true feelings were evident from her grimace.

By the end, she could only recall being surrounded by her teammates—her friends, as they congratulated her on finishing the year. Even more photos were taken, and flowers were given. It was just as perfect as she had always dreamed it would be.

Except Farrah was gone. Except Clark was gone. Except a lot of people who were supposed to be there were gone.

At least Cairo and Reese had come back to see her, Kate, and Eva on their special day. It was sweet seeing them get along with the new team members. Annleigh let herself smile briefly as Reese chatted eagerly with the new team members and the new mascot, clearly pleased that the line separating the mascot from the team had been done away with. Even Cairo, with her usual snarky attitude, had softened, allowing herself the smallest of smiles, smirking at the group.

None of them had ever been friends exactly, but after the whole “incident,” they knew that they were the only ones who could really understand each other. Cairo and Reese had experienced the same traumatic nights filled with murder and violence, had lost friends and teammates. Nobody else could get that. Not even Mattie, who had gone through her own set of trauma, knew what it was like to see someone you’d known for the past three years bleeding out on the ground.

Annleigh’s smile slipped slightly, and she could see Cairo and Reese glance over with worried looks. It had been a year since the two of them had graduated. A year since everything had gone down. Annleigh had moved on. She had! But it didn’t take much for her to remember everything.

The blood in the shower, on Clark, on her hands as she reached down to touch Farrah’s body—

It was a lot, to say the least.

But she pushed it back again. It was a time for celebration. They’d finished four years of hell, literally. So when Eva gave a worried glance in her and Kate’s direction and Kate looked at Annleigh with a stare that saw right through her, she shook it off and invited everyone to a party at her place. Her parents had encouraged it, and that was enough to convince her it was a good idea. Because it was a good idea.

The past was the past, and she was moving forward. That’s what she told herself as she avoided looking at Kate or Eva or Reese or Cairo or Mattie. She was fine. And she was going to prove it all tonight.

\---

Honestly, the party went better than expected. Or maybe just as well as expected? Everyone acted normally—why would anyone act other than normal, after all?—and it was enough for Annleigh to forget about everything wrong with the night.

Of course, the party had to end at some point. Slowly, people trickled out of the house. First it was all of the new members of the cheer team. Then Mattie mumbled that it was probably time to get home. She was appropriately hugged by everyone before smiling awkwardly and backing out of the group circle that had gathered in Annleigh’s backyard.

Soon after, Eva had decided to take leave. She made a comment about her parents asking after her, gave a quick kiss to Kate, hugged Annleigh, and waved goodbye as she walked towards the front.

So then, it was just the original team members. The ones who had been on the team the longest, who were the closest to knowing Annleigh. Just Annleigh, Kate, Reese, and Cairo. Suddenly the air felt so much heavier than it had before.

Annleigh was about to make a comment about it being late, that they should probably all go home and get some sleep, until Cairo spoke up.

“Congrats on surviving high school. Literally,” she said with a casual smirk that had Reese narrowing her eyebrows at her and Kate rolling her eyes. “What? Considering our track record, it’s a pretty big accomplishment.”

“What, were you just waiting until now so you could make that joke?” Kate bit back, her nose wrinkled in a mix of annoyance and anger.

“You could have said it when Mattie and Eva were around,” Reese pointed out.

For a moment, Cairo looked strangely conflicted. Her face was tight and creased in the wrong areas. It quickly disappeared into a bored expression.

“I’m not _so_ awful as to bring it up in front of Mattie. I know what we did to her. And Eva … she wouldn’t get it the way that you three do,” Cairo said, looking directly into Annleigh and then Kate’s eyes.

Annleigh’s face relaxed, whereas before her eyebrows had been pinched and her lips pursed. Around her, it seemed like the others had reacted similarly. She knew that not everything had resolved between Cairo and the others, considering the fraught history that they all shared, but it seemed some things were forgivable when it came to jointly surviving a murderer.

“Yeah, well. Thanks,” Kate said, her tone flat, which was a major improvement from the hostile sound it had taken before.

“Seriously though,” Reese said, her smile softening as she looked between Annleigh and Kate. “Congrats. Trust us, we know how … weird it feels. But you deserve to celebrate the small things.”

Annleigh smiled genuinely at that. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. To us.”

She glanced over at Kate who was returning a half-smile, half-grimace.

“I agree. You deserve to celebrate,” Cairo said, giving a lopsided smile at the two of them, “and trust me, you deserve more of a celebration than this.” She gestured around them. “I mean, it’s barely midnight, and everyone’s already gone home.”

“So what are you proposing?” Kate asked, always an expert at reading the meaning between Cairo’s words.

“Let’s take a road trip,” Cairo said.

“A road trip?” Annleigh echoed, tilting her head in confusion.

“Yeah,” Cairo said. “I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff on the road while driving out to school. We could have a nice little trip. Just for a day.”

Annleigh looked at Reese who simply responded with a smile and a shrug.

“Sounds cool to me,” Reese said, catching a glance with Cairo. “I’m always down to skip town.”

Kate snorted a little bit. She glanced over at Annleigh with a raised eyebrow, and when Annleigh responded with the slightest of shrugs, Kate said, “I guess I’m okay with it.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on Annleigh. She couldn’t explain the strange tightening in her throat or the way her eyes suddenly stung, but she swallowed it all down and said, “Sure. When were you thinking?”

Cairo’s grin widened as everyone got on board. “Tomorrow morning? I can come and pick everyone up. Just be ready by 8 AM.”

That was no problem for Annleigh. She had always been an early riser, and besides, she got the feeling she wouldn’t sleep well tonight anyway.

“Should I assume that my girlfriend’s not invited?” Kate asked.

Reese gave a huff of a laugh and Cairo rolled her eyes.

“Whatever you think is best Kate,” was all Cairo said, a sour tone in her voice.

She didn’t know why, but Annleigh couldn’t help herself from giggling a little at that, and when she glanced over at Cairo, the smallest smile had formed on her mouth. Even Kate couldn’t but relax and look at Annleigh with a fond smile, and Reese just beamed at the three of them like it was the easiest thing to do.

Annleigh rushed them out of her house soon after, with Kate teasing her about how she needed her “beauty sleep.” After getting ready for bed and packing the few things that she knew she would need (earbuds, charger pack, water, snacks), she lay down in bed and stared at the ceiling.

It had been a year. More than that, if they were being precise. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to sleep, tried to be excited about the next day.

Somehow, between flashes of Clark’s wide grin and Farrah’s semi-annoyed, semi-amused eye roll, she managed to fall asleep to an uneasy rest.

\---

Cairo arrived at Annleigh’s house at 8:15 AM with Reese sitting shotgun next to her. Reese’s phone was already plugged into the car’s audio system and playing some pop/EDM music that Annleigh wasn’t familiar with.

Soon after, they arrived at Eva’s house, where Kate was kissing Eva goodbye. Eva was fully dressed, clearly an early riser, as she leaned in and whispered something into Kate’s ear, before they gave a long kiss (that Cairo groaned at) and parted ways. Kate slid into the seat next to Annleigh, giving a quick, lopsided smile at her, and turned to the window to wave a final goodbye to Eva.

“Decided not to invite the girlfriend?” Cairo asked, sounding like she couldn’t care less about the answer.

“Don’t sound so flattered,” Kate snarked at Cairo. “She already had plans with the family. Besides, I wouldn’t want to subject her to _you_ any more than necessary.” Before Cairo could respond with an appropriate comeback, Kate turned to Reese and said, “I love your music choice by the way.”

Reese’s face brightened at the compliment. “Thanks! These are actually songs from the dance team I choreograph for at uni …”

Reese explained her dance team to Kate, who continued to ask questions about the team, what her team members were like, and the performances and competitions they went to.

Annleigh glanced into the rearview mirror at Cairo, where she expected to see the same irritated look that she remembered Cairo always having in high school. Instead, Cairo’s face held a neutral expression, bordering on the edge of looking amused.

Instead of feeling equally amused or comforted, Annleigh felt a pang of almost betrayal. A part of her had almost expected everyone to stay the same, and yet things were changing. Before, Annleigh would have never thought that Cairo might care about any of them, least of all Kate or Reese, but now, here she was showing a soft side Annleigh had never seen before. The real question, though, was why that made Annleigh feel so wrong and upset.

Annleigh shook her head and tuned back into the conversation that Kate and Reese were having. Every now and then, Cairo did give a sarcastic comment, but her facial expression remained the same with the semi-amused look as before. So Annleigh pasted a smile onto her face.

She suddenly felt very tired. All she wanted was to go back home and sleep, but she kept up appearances, laughing every now and then when appropriate. She’d made it through a lot of long days before. In fact, a whole year full of them. She could make it through one more.

\---

She woke to a start when the car stopped abruptly in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t even realized that she had fallen asleep. She looked around and quickly realized why they had stopped. Yes, they were in the middle of nowhere, but now she realized that there were very weird, random sculptures set up outside. So clearly, this roadside attraction had warranted enough interest to stop.

She pushed open her car door and fell beside Kate, who looked just as exhausted and half-asleep as her.

“Where are we again?” Annleigh asked.

“Welcome to the MOTA!” Reese declared cheerfully and then clarified, “The Museum of Trash Art.”

Trash art seemed like an appropriate description. It really did look like people had just stuck a bunch of trash on top of the grassy plain, but then again, what did Annleigh know about art?

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Cairo said with an exaggerated sigh. The tone sounded so genuine that if Annleigh didn’t know Cairo, she might have believed that Cairo was telling the truth when she said that. But then again, she did know Cairo.

They slowly walked through the strange exhibit with Kate snapping photos on her phone as they passed by the weirdest looking things.

“And this one represents the complexities of the modern conception of good and evil,” Reese said cheerfully about a very colorful object that was so drenched in paint, Annleigh couldn’t even tell what it originally was, “and this one resembles the difficulty in perceiving the self …”

Annleigh tuned it all out as she walked by everything. Kate seemed to notice as she nudged Annleigh and whispered, “Hey. You good?”

Annleigh gave a small smile and nodded, but it clearly didn’t convince Kate, as Kate put away her phone and lifted a single eyebrow.

Annleigh conceded and whispered back, “I guess I’m just not that interested in all of this.”

Kate nodded and gave a devious smirk back before turning back to Reese and interrupting her speech, “Hey, no offense to your whole ‘this represents the cold reality of love’ stuff, but this kind of looks like a giant turd,” as she pointed towards the sculpture Reese was describing.

Reese feigned insult, covering her chest with her hand. “How dare you? Clearly you must have no eye for true art, insulting the greatest piece in this exhibit. I mean, it isn’t called Trash #7 for nothing.”

Annleigh couldn’t hold it back anymore as she snorted at the ridiculousness of it all.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s a turd,” Kate said stubbornly. “See how this can and that shoe point out of it? Clearly meant as a metaphor to symbolize a turd.”

Reese rolled her eyes. “Look. Sometimes, trash that is a metaphor of a turd is _also_ a metaphor for love. Haven’t you ever felt very satisfied after a shit? The artist is saying that taking dump is also a form of love.”

Even Kate couldn’t hold back her laugh at that as she slapped her hands onto her face.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” she said, her words muffled behind her hands.

“Well, as a true _artiste_ , I’m not afraid of the raw honesty in art,” Reese said, puffing out her chest and standing a bit taller. “Only I can see the world as it truly is.”

“Yeah, this is bullshit," Cairo said, raising an eyebrow at the whole scenario though she didn’t bother hiding the grin on her face. "Let’s just get back on the road, shall we?” She turned back and started walking towards the car without checking that the others were following her.

Kate gave a sharp laugh and turned to follow her, while Reese looked towards Annleigh to wait for her before walking beside her.

All together, they made their way back slowly through the exhibit of sculptures.

“These aren’t actually representative of human society, are they?” Annleigh asked Reese in a whisper.

Reese grinned back and whispered, “Nah. Cairo took me a long while back, and there was some other pretentious dude going on and on about it all. Figured it would be fun to parrot him. And it was.”

Annleigh laughed at that. “Well, you make a very good pretentious artist, if I do say so myself.”

“Why, thank you,” Reese said, giving a mock bow. “It’s all thanks to my liberal arts education, really, for giving me a worldly perspective.”

Annleigh couldn’t stop giggling all the way back to the car until they settled in and drove off, ditching the shitty art pieces in the dust.

\---

They made a couple of other stops at random places, Reese gushing over the views and Cairo standing and staring silently. Kate complained about how boring all of the stops were, though she continued to take photos of every place.

When Annleigh asked about it, Kate blushed and muttered, “Eva asked me to take photos of our trip.”

Overall, despite Annleigh’s worst fears, it was a pretty nice trip. Around lunch time, Reese and Cairo revealed that they had packed a full lunch for them, rendering Annleigh’s snacks basically useless (though no one complained when she added them to the pile).

It was nice. Among the three people who reminded her the most of the worst time in her life, they managed to make her forget about all of it. Reese talked about her dance major and all of the exciting, and exhausting, parts of it while Cairo talked about all of the classes and majors she had been exploring. Despite not knowing what major to enter, Cairo didn’t seem preoccupied about making that decision yet.

Kate mentioned how excited she was to start college and how nervous she was about starting a long-distance relationship with Eva. Whereas Eva was going to a college close to home, Kate was going out of state and was worried that the distance would strain their relationship. Of course, Cairo brought up how if their relationship had survived the whole murder situation, then they’d survive long-distance just fine.

As for Annleigh, she was excited for college too. She was also attending college out of state, if only to escape their town. She wondered if the others had done the same for the same reason, but she didn’t want to ask and ruin the atmosphere. Instead she talked about how she had gotten a scholarship for cheerleading and how she couldn’t wait to explore classes as well.

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. She just left out all of the parts of how scared she was to move on. How it felt like she was betraying Clark and Farrah, living out all of the parts of life that they would never get to do.

But it felt selfish to bring that up. Everyone else was hurting too, and they were trying to move on, so Annleigh could move on too. She had to. And the further they drove from home, the more that Annleigh felt like maybe she really could.

She caught Cairo’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and she understood why Cairo had suggested they come out here. None of them had ever really talked about any of it, but Annleigh knew they all understood each other in that moment.

She smiled and leaned back into her headrest, listening to strange indie music that Kate had forced them to play.

\---

The sun was low in the sky as Reese pulled over, having taken over driving from Cairo a few hours back. It didn’t seem like there was some sort of attraction or view where they had stopped, and Annleigh and Kate shared a confused glance as they exited the car. In fact, it didn’t seem like there was anything but just flat plains for miles into the horizon.

Cairo and Reese pulled out some bags from the trunk and started walking into the middle of nowhere. Reese looked back with a reassuring smile as she called out, “Well, come on then.”

Annleigh and Kate looked at each other before Kate shrugged at her and followed after the others, and Annleigh had no choice to follow as well.

They walked for a while, making small talk and joking around, until Cairo and Reese stopped and put down their bags. Behind them, their car was just a small dot against the thin line of the road.

“What are we doing out here?” Annleigh finally asked as she watched Cairo and Reese unzip their bags.

Reese pulled out a large Tigers blanket that she had been gifted at graduation, and Cairo pulled out a bag full of food.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Cairo said dryly, pulling out containers of pre-prepared food that somehow looked delicious despite the hours it must have been sitting in the trunk.

“We’re having a picnic? Here?” Kate asked, looking around them at the empty plains.

“The scenery grows on you,” Reese said, taking the first seat on the blanket and patting the space behind her. “Trust me.”

Kate hesitated, looking at Annleigh, before sighing and sitting next to Reese. Annleigh took a seat beside her, and Cairo sat down next to Annleigh so that they were all sitting in a circle.

“Well, dig in. I didn’t stay up late cooking this for nothing,” Cairo said, handing out paper plates to all of them.

Soon the four of them had gathered food on their plates and were eating, conversation coming up every now and then, though for a part of the time they just sat in silence and watched the sun get closer to the horizon.

The wind was slight, rustling the tall grass around them. After they had all finished eating and put down their plates, it hit Annleigh just how silent it was out here. Annleigh didn’t realize how used to non-silence she was. It seemed like her house was always filled with some kind of noise. The snoring of her father at night or the whirring of the air conditioner, or the heater in the winter. And during the day she was constantly listening to some kind of music or watching a video. She couldn’t recall the last time she had heard true silence.

Instead, out here it felt like there was truly nothing. As the sun set, the stars and the moon became clearer above them. Annleigh had never felt smaller than she did now.

“Why here?” Kate asked suddenly. She looked between Cairo and Reese who had both gone still in the quiet. Kate clarified, “It just … it feels like this was planned. Like you chose this place specifically.”

“It was,” Reese said with a soft smile. “It’s a nice place, don’t you think?”

Kate didn’t have an answer for that, but Annleigh didn’t want to let the conversation go silent again. In the few moments of silence that she had experienced, she had decided she didn’t like it.

“But why?” Annleigh pushed. “Why take us out here? We could’ve stopped anywhere else at any of the other views we saw.”

Apparently, she couldn’t avoid the silence because no one seemed to want to answer her question.

Until Cairo finally spoke up, “I came out here when I was moving to college.”

She paused, as though waiting for someone else to say something, but when no one else offered commentary, she continued.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I probably wasn’t,” Cairo admitted. “I was just so tired of being at home and so eager to leave that I packed all my shit into the trunk and the backseat and just started driving. Except it was a very long drive, and I hadn’t exactly _planned_ for any of it because I was an idiot, and before I knew it, I was out here, and the sun had set, and … I was tired.” Cairo paused as she looked up at the stars.

“There were so many stars. It was the first time I’d been so far from the city. I’d never realized how much light pollution there was. I was so surprised that I pulled over, and then just … kept walking. Out here.”

Cairo stopped and squeezed her eyes shut.

“I felt so alone. Like _truly_ alone, and—” Cairo stopped, her jaw tensing in the darkness. “I was supposed to go to college with Riley. We’d been planning it since, like, junior year. We were gonna go to the same school and room together and take all of the general freshman classes together.” Cairo let out a shaky breath. “We were gonna drive to school together.”

“I was so mad at her,” Cairo whispered out harshly. “I still am.”

Cairo opened her eyes and then huffed out a bitter laugh. “And so I broke down crying out here. In the middle of nowhere.”

It was dark enough that Annleigh couldn’t see Cairo’s face very well, but she could tell that Cairo’s eyes were watering as the moonlight reflected off of them. There was a brief silence as Reese reached out and placed a hand on Cairo’s shoulder. It was the closest that Annleigh had ever seen the two of them be.

Then, Reese let her arm fall as she looked off into the distance, “Cairo took me out here in winter break. I … didn’t like being back home, and Cairo and I weren’t exactly friends, but she was also the only other person who got what it was like, getting out of town and then being made to come back. Plus, she reached out to me first, and I’m too much of a saint to turn down someone in need.”

Reese smirked at Cairo, who only gave a good-natured huff in response.

“She took me through the whole road trip and then stopped here, and it was … nice.” Reese hesitated, eyes flickering to Annleigh. “I know that I played a role in what happened at that sleepover, and I hate that. Clark died because of _me_ , and …”

Reese trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, and Kate reached out a hand, covering Reese’s own. Reese flashed a grateful smile.

“I didn’t exactly break down crying or anything, but … there was something nice about being away from everything. From everyone. It was like I wasn’t guilty or sad or scared anymore. I didn’t have to be anyone or anything anymore. Not out here.”

Reese paused and gave a loud sigh. “I know it sounds cheesy, but we figured that since you two were graduating, maybe being out here would help you too.”

Annleigh could feel her throat closing up and her eyes watering up again, except this time she couldn’t hold it back. She gasped her air and put her hands up to her face to wipe away her tears. She could feel someone’s hand on her back, comforting her, and as she opened her eyes, Kate looked at her with the same grief-stricken face.

“I miss them,” Annleigh managed to croak out. “Chess would’ve been graduating with us.”

Kate’s face seemed to crumple even more, if that were possible, and Kate reached up to her own face with her free hand to wipe away the tears, holding Annleigh even tighter with her other arm.

“Farrah would’ve been celebrating with us,” Kate whispered out. “With her stupid, annoying face that she always has when she’s secretly happy for one of us.”

Cairo reached out with an arm around Annleigh and Reese mirrored Cairo’s movements around Kate.

“Clark would have finished his first year at college,” Reese muttered, her voice cracking, and they all curled in, like gravity was sucking them closer to each other.

“I—” Annleigh started but wasn’t able to finish as another sob broke out of her. She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, holding onto each other in their sorry pile, until the tears started to dry up and left her filled with exhaustion. Their arms dropped and they wiped at their faces to get rid of whatever streaks their tears had left. Even Cairo quickly reached up to her face to wipe some tears away.

After a moment of silence had passed, Kate asked, “Well, what now?”

Cairo sighed and gave a huge sniffle in an attempt to clear her nose. “Now we suck it up and head back home.

Kate huffed in a small laugh before whispering, “Yeah. Sounds about right.”

They packed up the blanket and the food, packing it all back into the two bags that they had brought, and made their way back to the car. For a brief moment, Kate and Annleigh had panicked, unable to see the car in the darkness, until Cairo reassured them.

“Trust me. I lost my car the first time I came out here. I’ve learned from past mistakes,” she said, waving around her phone, which showed a compass on its screen.

They walked back east towards the car silently. Annleigh felt tired, but in a good way that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She felt tired in the way that meant maybe she could get a decent night’s rest.

Once they reached the car, Annleigh looked back into the darkness and the night sky. She was surprised to find that she was sad about leaving the empty plains behind. Something about being surrounded by absolutely nothing was comforting, like it was a message from the world that she didn’t need to care so much about being someone or being okay.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see Cairo giving her an understanding look.

“We can come back some other time, as long as you don’t mind taking a forever-long road trip again.”

She heard Kate groan. “It’s gonna take forever to get back home, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah. The ride back is the worst,” Reese said.

“Shut up,” Cairo said, rolling her eyes and dropping her arm from Annleigh’s shoulder. She opened the car door and slid in. “As the driver, I’m the only one who’s allowed to complain.”

Annleigh let herself smile as she slid into her own seat in the back. She grinned at Kate, Cairo, and Reese bickering and insulting each other. Despite the redness of their eyes and the exhaustion in their faces, their voices were just as bright and sharp as always. She leaned her head back onto the headrest, closed her eyes, and let the words melt into nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of wish I could have written more of Kate opening up because both Cairo and Reese got to talk about their grief, and even though Annleigh didn't open up either, you're in Annleigh's head the whole fic anyway. But also Kate isn't the type to just open up like that, so oh well.
> 
> Also, just know that Cairo had an extensive, heartfelt apology to Reese about how she treated her in high school, and Reese so generously forgave her, which is why they don't hate each other anymore. I didn't write it, but it happened :)


End file.
